CHAPTER 5 Dracula Appears!

Bram Stoker was not sure how people would react to Dracula. He told a friend he didn’t think people would remember it after it was published. But some critics really liked the book. One newspaper compared the count’s story to Frankenstein and the tales of horror and suspense that had been written by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Another critic wrote that some parts of the book so disgusted him, he read them quickly. But overall, the book gripped his attention and he applauded the novel. He warned parents, though, to keep the scary story away from children!

Tales filled with spooky castles and ruined churches started becoming popular in Europe during the eighteenth century. Those buildings were sometimes made in an architectural style known as Gothic, and the books that featured them became known as Gothic novels. These spooky stories often had mysterious villains, ghosts, or witches. In many of them, a hero saved a young woman from danger by the end of the book.

Many people believe Dracula is a Gothic novel because it features Dracula’s castle, the creepy homes where his coffins are hidden, and the ruins of the Whitby church. And the story certainly shows an evil villain out to harm innocent young women.

But in other ways, Dracula is not a typical Gothic novel. Mina is not helpless. She helps save herself from the vampire. Several of the vampire hunters are scientists who use the latest technology of their day, including telegrams, typewriters, and the phonograph. Bram Stoker’s book was a new kind of Gothic novel.

In 1899, Dracula first appeared in the United States. Bram’s novel was published one chapter at a time, just like the penny dreadfuls, and printed in several newspapers. The entire book was published in 1899. In 1900, one newspaper called it one of the most famous books of the year. Bram may not have thought his vampire tale was memorable, but US readers loved it, too!

When Dracula was first published, the book did not have any pictures. People didn’t get their first look at the count until 1901. A version of the book published that year in England had a drawing of the vampire climbing down a wall of his castle. Dracula crawls down headfirst, like a lizard. He wears a long cape that looks like bat wings. In the illustration, Dracula’s hairline along his forehead forms a point known as a widow’s peak.

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Richmond, Virginia. He published his first collection of poems when he was just eighteen years old, and went on to become the first American author to earn a living by writing. He later became famous for frightening stories that influenced many other writers. In one of them, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator murders a man, and then is convinced the victim’s heart is nearby and still beating. The sound of the beating heart drives him to confess to the murder.

Poe also sometimes wrote about people who seem to be dead but come back to life. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator helps his friend Roderick Usher bury his dead twin sister. But after about a week passes, the sister leaves her tomb. She had been buried alive.

Edgar Allan Poe is considered the creator of the first detective story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” He was also a critic, an editor, and a poet who is probably most famous for the poem “The Raven.”

The next time anyone caught a glimpse of the Dracula character was in 1922. A German film company released a vampire movie that year titled Nosferatu. Like other movies at the time, Nosferatu was filmed in black and white, and it did not have sound. Parts of the story were told by words printed on a black background, called title cards, which were shown in between the action on the screen.

The company did not have legal permission to film the story the way that Bram Stoker told it in his book Dracula. So it changed the names of the characters. Count Dracula became Count Orlok, and Mina was renamed Ellen. The story, though, closely matched many parts of Stoker’s book, and most people knew that the movie was retelling the story of Dracula.

Stoker’s wife, Florence, was not too happy with Nosferatu. Mrs. Stoker had legal control over her husband’s works. (Bram Stoker had died in 1912.) She demanded that the German film company pay for using the story. German courts agreed with her, but the company didn’t have enough money to pay. So, Mrs. Stoker ordered all copies of Nosferatu destroyed. And most were. But one did reach the United States. The film was shown there for the first time in 1929.